What a gun-crying shame. By vetoing the well-written no-guns-in-buildings law (what the “news” media and rights-deniers labeled the guns-in-buildings bill), we’re all less safe.
Now, instead of guaranteeing that sensitive places are truly gun-free — using metal detectors, controlled access and guards — we can merrily believe wide-open buildings with no-gun signs (and absolutely no controls) are gun-free. It’s Pollyanna on steroids.
Truly sensitive buildings that should be protected needed that law and the safeguards it provided. Now all you get are feckless paper signs. Thanks, Governor.
Make no mistake. Your libraries, public schools and public buildings are stark naked targets. No guards, no scanners, you won’t even have law-abiding armed adults present to respond, which the vetoed bill authorized. Gun bigots did this by falsely screaming, again, it would magically turn good people into psychotic killers. Complicit media concurred.
Remember — police are second responders. People assaulted are always the first responders, despite deceptive “news” reports. When seconds count, police are just minutes away.
Now you have gaping open public places, without even your own Auntie Annie there to offer defense. Shame on those who would deny our civil rights in the false name of safety.
Alan Korwin
Author, “The Arizona Gun Owner’s Guide”
Scottsdale
Rational Human posted at 8:03 am on Mon, Apr 30, 2012.
"And as Lott himself has noted, the one factor that consistently shows up in those states with the lowest violent crime rate is this: states with the smallest populations tend to be safer, regardless of gun laws."
And what about the fact that states with the highest proportion of Blacks and Hispanics have the highest violent crime rates regardless of gun laws? Oh, that would be racist to point out that fact, sorry.
Mike McClellan posted at 3:43 pm on Wed, Apr 25, 2012.
Rich, you of course missed the shadow and the book. Still no proof of your original claim, and ironic that you fall back on the "my opponent uses ad hominem."
doctoral student, thanks for the sources. I'm familiar with Lott and thus a little bit with Kleck, since Kleck is sometimes cited in Lott's writings. I'm also familiar with the criticisms of Lott's methodology. I'm sorry but I haven't read Barrow.
Regardless, though, the original point I made -- that Arizona has among the highest rates of gun deaths per capita in the nation -- is borne out by FBI statistics for the last 15 years, as they also show Arizona among the top in gun homicides per capita. If you'll go back to earlier posts, you'll note that I suggest that gun laws in and of themselves are not the sole factor in determining safety of states. Lott's research, as I'm sure you know, has been criticized because he often doesn't take reconcile other mitigating factors.
Now, overall crime in Arizona might be lower than in other states. Again, FBI stats over the last years show Arizona to have one of the highest violent crime rates in the nation. And as Lott himself has noted, the one factor that consistently shows up in those states with the lowest violent crime rate is this: states with the smallest populations tend to be safer, regardless of gun laws.
Rich posted at 2:06 pm on Wed, Apr 25, 2012.
Mike
" Plato'd laugh you right of the cave..." The allegory of the cave is that, in it, we can perceive only shadows. If it were possible to get out of it at all, then presumably we would perceive what causes the shadows. I'm trying to figure out if you are tacitly admitting the point, or are just ignorant of Plato.
I have to go along with doctoralstudent here, this is just pure troll. "Simply repeating it (combined with multiple ad hominem logical fallacies toward others in the thread and claiming to know what the other people know or don't know, and more) would appear to be troll-type behavior."
doctoralstudent posted at 12:17 pm on Wed, Apr 25, 2012.
(hoping my paragraph separation shows up ok...a few times it looks ok in the input box, but looks run together after posting. My apologies if this occurs for this longer read)
@Mike McClellan
This is not a venue where proof is able to be adequately supplied, but citations may be shown.
The FBI raw-data-gathering is far from anything resembling scientific or open-peer-reviewed research. Citing cherry-picked raw data is a logical fallacy and simply more duck-quacking.
Regarding the Census, this is another non-scientific example. An example such is the state ranking as it is a composite and has nothing to do with linear measurement, is based upon a small sampling, is not a true random sampling, is not an academic (let alone open-peer-reviewed) study, is not scientific, includes inherent weighting by definition and not by significance, and is stated in the Census Bureau's own "Cautionary note about rankings" in order to avoid exactly the kind of conversation you attempted
http://www.census.gov/statab/ranks/note.html
One citation of open-peer-reviewed research is Lott who is a bit more popular due to his book and some news-station talking points. His 1996 work covered 16 years and 100% of the counties in the United States without cherry picking for analysis. His later updates added nearly another decade. Here's a few more, each of which has been open-peer-reviewed, but not even close to a small sampling, but a small variety or author-teams.
Barrow, R. (1999). Women with attitude: Self protection, policy, and the law. Thomas jefferson law review. 21 T. Jefferson L. Rev. 59 (September 1999)
Kleck, G. & Gertz, M. (1995). Armed resistance to crime: The prevalence and nature of self-defense with a gun, 86 J. Crim. L & Criminology 150, 153, 180, 182-82.
Lott, J. & Landes, W. (1999). Multiple victim public shootings, bombings, and right-to-carry concealed handgun laws: contrasting private and public law enforcement. (April 1999). University of Chicago Law School, John M. Olin Law & Economics Working Paper No. 73.
Lott, J. & Mustard, D. (1997). Crime, deterrence, and right-to-carry concealed handguns. The Journal of Legal Studies
Vol. 26, No. 1 (January 1997), pp. 1-68
Lott, J. (1996). Does allowing law-abiding citizens to carry concealed hanguns save lives. Valparaiso university law review. Volume:31 Issue:2 (Spring 1997). pp 355-364.
But there are multiple hundreds of such studies as can be seen by this screenshot from a scholarly search database (and the Google-branded search page-selector where each page = 10 results).
http://i.imgur.com/zepsY.jpg
Referencing "gun-deaths" as a categorization is a logical fallacy of selective pre-definition. It does not support any of your points. It is not scientific and is the opposite of such. Yet this has been discussed already; you provided no substantial counter of the usage of this definition in any way. Simply repeating it (combined with multiple ad hominem logical fallacies toward others in the thread and claiming to know what the other people know or don't know, and more) would appear to be troll-type behavior. As such, it would seem there is little possive effect to bother responding further such negative behaviors that you've been exhibiting.
Mike McClellan posted at 6:27 am on Wed, Apr 25, 2012.
"Part of a dialectic?" Another good one. Plato'd laugh you right of the cave, and if he were alive today, he'd suggest your role in the "dialectic" is closer to a diuretic. Or Dianetics
Rich posted at 5:58 pm on Tue, Apr 24, 2012.
Right MIke, you made up your mind, didn't look and are trying, once again for the last word. Even though you cherry picked the point, were shown that, and you still don't want to accept it. Though it was part of dialectic, it wasn't an argument, it was a demonstration. And all you've done is to keep demonstrating.
Mike McClellan posted at 4:32 pm on Tue, Apr 24, 2012.
You're argument is laughable, Rich. You make claims -- in this case, even claim "page after page" -- but you fail to give a single specific link or even site or even a name of a study you claim to have read.
Your orchard is bare. Or worse, a prop in the Potemkin Village of "statistics" you've created from whole cloth.
Rich posted at 4:01 pm on Tue, Apr 24, 2012.
Mike,
You are seriously claiming that no one has any statistics on police use of force, use of deadly force, or any other police misconduct? I find page after page of stats and maps, government reports, private reports. There is this one with a nice little interactive map that shows up dangerous spots in red, the biggest red spot is Maricopa County, Arizona. Apparently, because you can't find these stats, we should believe they don't exist? I told you I cherry picked it Mike, in answer to your cherry picking, and frankly, it's a pretty large orchard to choose from.
As doctoralstudent mentioned: "Perhaps it might be because your assertion is non-scientific and is a logical fallacy. Such attempts to use selective cherry-picking have been debunked in the scientific community each time it is attempted."
I cherry picked a stat to show you an orchard, and you don't seem to be able to find a tree.
Mike McClellan posted at 2:34 pm on Tue, Apr 24, 2012.
I wish I was making Bozo's income . . . but enough about Mitt Romney.
As to Rich, you won't find the "statistic" you claim exists . . . because it doesn't. The Guardian attempted to find out the number and rate of justifiable homicides by state.
The FBI doesn't keep them. No one does. In part because the FBI doesn't distinguish between police-related justifiable homicides and private individual justifiable homicides.
So keep up the charade, Rich. Maybe that kind of hooey worked at the "fully-accredited" mysterious institution of higher learning you claimed you were employed by.
Rational Human posted at 2:30 pm on Tue, Apr 24, 2012.
Mr. Obama’s attorney asserted that the document is not evidence of either Mr. Obama’s identity or place of birth. Judge Masin also asked Obama’s attorney whether she would so stipulate. She did so stipulate, agreeing that both the court and the Secretary of State cannot rely on the internet birth certificate as evidence of Obama’s place of birth and that Obama has produced no other evidence to the court regarding his place of birth.
What does this mean?
It means that Mr. Obama’s legal team decided the alleged birth certificate on the White House website cannot be defended from evidence it is a forgery.
Read that twice to let that sink-in.
This is consistent with the quote attributed to Gandhi that criminal oligarchs will ignore and laugh at you as for as long as possible to avoid the fight that factually crushes them.
This also means that exposing a lie this big helps the 99% with intellectual integrity and moral courage to expose the 1%’s crimes in money and war, arrest the obvious criminals, and begin policy for 100% of Earth’s inhabitants.
Rational Human posted at 2:26 pm on Tue, Apr 24, 2012.
http://www.silverdoctors.com/obama-lawyer-admits-forgery-but-disregards-image-as-indication-of-obamas-ineligibility/
Taking an audacious and shocking angle against the constitutional eligibility mandate, Obama’s lawyer, Alexandra Hill, admitted that the image of Obama’s birth certificate was a forgery and made the absurd claim that, therefore, it cannot be used as evidence to confirm his lack of natural born citizenship status. Therefore, she argued, it is “irrelevant to his placement on the ballot”.
Oh what the heck just google "lawyer admits document is forgery" Just because you wont hear about it in the lefty main stream media doesn't mean it didn't happen. It just means they don't want joe public to hear about it.
Rational Human posted at 2:16 pm on Tue, Apr 24, 2012.
Rich, you do know that bozo the clown isn't a coherent adversary, so in order to win any argument with him you have to lower yourself to his standards. I know it's demeaning, but then why argue with him at all? Do you think you have a chance of enlightening this person? He has decided, for reasons only his twisted logic can imagine, that guns are responsible for gun related death. Any attempt to consider what hand might be holding the firearm is irrelevant to him. He cannot see past the gun. Tunnel vision is a common trait amongst the gun grabbers of the world.
Rich posted at 1:31 pm on Tue, Apr 24, 2012.
Mike,
What both doctoralstudent and I said is pretty freely published and anyone can look it up. And it is a form of cherry picking. In the academic world, you are called on to defend a paper, which endangers, at least the suspicion that it is imperfect. The first point I made was, let's get real basic here so you'll understand it 'guns don't kill people do. therefore to control guns you first need to control people.' Clear? As to the cherry picking expeditions, you meant yours seriously, as if taken out of context and order, they meant something. Mine was a satire of yours, a cherry picked stat that is rather easy to find in order for you to catch on to what you had done. You haven't so far. Which isn't really doing the discussion a lot of good.
Mike McClellan posted at 11:43 am on Tue, Apr 24, 2012.
Rich and doctoralstudent, I might indeed be cherry-picking statistics. But both of you dispute them.
And neither has given any proof for your claims.
Rich, in your case, because you can't prove your contention that "we have the deadliest police in the nation." You just said that because it fits your narrative. Nice.
doctoral, I'm sure, can cite at least one reputable, peer-reviewed piece of exhaustive research to prove his claim.
He just hasn't yet.
Rich posted at 8:51 am on Tue, Apr 24, 2012.
Mike,
two people have now pointed out your cherry picking way with statistics. They say what the compiler wants them to say, That's we they were complied. The same study usually beaks if down which, if you are clever, support , allows you to support any side you want. Which is all your doing. If people were all trained in guns and gun safety, would we be substabtiatly better off? I contend in that end we would, well, except the polititicians.
Mike McClellan posted at 8:06 am on Tue, Apr 24, 2012.
doctoral student, really? Why don't you prove your claim? Cite one "open-peer reviewed scholarly research" report that substantiates your "more guns = safer populace."
Of are you like Rich, who can't find any evidence to prove his statement, so he tries to deflect.
So I went to the FBI database to find stats on gun deaths: unsurprisingly, every year the number one weapon used to commit murder is: a gun of some sort.
But what about the more guns = safer states claim?
What does the FBI show about that? According to doctoralstudent, the states with more guns should be the safest.
But the data isn't that clear (of course, this is only for the latest report, which is 2010, so hopefully doctoralstudent can cite a more comprehensive study):
Overall, the crime rate in the U.S. was 403.6/100,000
Arizona's crime rate? 408.1/100,000
Alaska, another state with lenient gun laws? 638/100,000
New York? 392/100,000
Connecticut? 281/100,000
Here's the source -- http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2010/crime-in-the-u.s.-2010/tables/10tbl05.xls
At the same time, other states with lenient gun laws had lower crime rates and states like New York and Connecticut with more restrictive gun laws had higher crime rates.
And here's the Census study of states' violent crime rates -- http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2010/ranks/rank21.html
The U.S. had a violent crime rate of 467/100,000
Arizona? 483
Alaska? 661
New York? 414
Massachusetts? 432
Alabama? 448
Again, there are some states (California, for example) with both restrictive gun laws and higher violent crime rates, and states (Idaho, for example) with both more lenient gun laws and lower violent crime rates.
In fact, if we're looking for one factor that the 10 states in the study with the lowest violent crime rates, it this: sparse population. Virginia is the outlier, at least in this Census study.
Now IF these rates are typical over the course of many years, this would support what I said earlier, that gun laws in and of themselves don't make a place safer or more dangerous.
So doctoralstudent, I'm eager to read a study you can provide us that does an exhaustive study of stats over several years and takes into account other factors that affect crime rate from year to year.
doctoralstudent posted at 7:28 am on Tue, Apr 24, 2012.
@Mike McClellan
Of course Korwin doesn't mention your tangent side-story. Perhaps it might be because your assertion is non-scientific and is a logical fallacy. Such attempts to use selective cherry-picking have been debunked in the scientific community each time it is attempted.
Without cherry-picking, and using open-peer-reviewed scholarly research, where there are more guns, there are less murders (by all means), less rapes, and less aggravated assaults. In short, contrary to your unsupported assertion, open-peer-reviewed research shows that more guns = safer populace.
Your statements are unsupportable. Your attempt to use non-scientific attempts at terms such as “gun-deaths” is a logical fallacy and does not contribute in a material way to the discussion. Your initial posting would have had the same amount of support had you quacked like duck for six paragraphs.
Rich posted at 10:13 pm on Mon, Apr 23, 2012.
The proof is right on the Internet all you had to do was look it up, probably in the same pace you got your stats. But you don't do that, stats are only true if they agree with your pre-formulated ideas. Ninety-six point two percent of all statistics are wrong anyway. And the point wasn't statistics, it was the idea that controlling guns and not people who carry them is rather mindless, as well as useless.
Mike McClellan posted at 7:43 pm on Mon, Apr 23, 2012.
In other words, you have no proof. Expected.
So you go on the personal attack -- "as you usually do."
Rich posted at 6:24 pm on Mon, Apr 23, 2012.
"Any proof of that? And not something you claim but something that is verifiable?"
You could look it up. It isn't really that hard to find. Certainly no harder than the stats you quoted. Proof? It's what you believe in, and you can always find or arrange statistics to agree with you. Furthermore, you rather missed the point entirely. As you usually do.
Mike McClellan posted at 5:12 pm on Mon, Apr 23, 2012.
Rich, oh, Rich . . . ! Where ARE you?
Waiting for the proof that police in AZ "the deadliest in the nation."
Or is that just some claim that can't be proven?
TeaPartyPatriot posted at 4:39 pm on Mon, Apr 23, 2012.
Private ownership of guns is outlawed in Mexico yet in 2010 their murder rate was 18 per 100,000. In America, where we value freedom and are constitutionally allowed to own firearms, the murder rate is just 4.8 per 100,000.
Rational Human posted at 1:59 pm on Mon, Apr 23, 2012.
In 2010 - the latest year for which detailed statistics are available - there were 12,996 murders in the US. Of those, 8,775 were caused by firearms. If you look at the firearms murder rate per 100,000 people, District of Columbia comes out top - with 16 firearms murders per 100,000 man, woman and child in the state. There were 99 firearms murders in DC in 2010, down 12% on 2009. DC has the most restrictive gun laws in the US yet has the highest rate. Obviously, gun laws, whether restrictive or lenient, have very little to do with the problem. Of course we don't want to break down the murder with guns by race or ethnicity because that would show the entire truth and that would be racist.
Mike McClellan posted at 7:41 am on Mon, Apr 23, 2012.
Bold claim, Rich, that " the stats are the way they are because we have we have the deadliest police in the nation."
Any proof of that? And not something you claim but something that is verifiable?
Rich posted at 4:56 pm on Sun, Apr 22, 2012.
Mike,
The stats are the way they are because we have the deadliest police in the nation. You are twice as likely to be shot by a policeman in the Valley here than in New York City. If you remove police from the stats, Arizona is a relatively safe place. In fact, if you remove police from the stats, the places that restrict guns the most are also the most dangerous. You can rearrange statistics to say anything you want to say, and claim you've 'proved' something. You aren't going to stop violence, no political entity, no church or religion, in fact nothing in history ever really has. Fixating on guns, rather than people who carry them, pretty much guarantees that status quo.
Slabside posted at 3:02 pm on Sun, Apr 22, 2012.
@ Mike McClellan, " So more guns = safer populace? Really? Doesn't seem to pan out that way in AZ."
"Obviously restrictive gun laws don't equate to safer states -- D.C. has incredibly restrictive gun laws and its death by guns rate is usually at the top."
Mike, you always admonish any type of legislation that relieves any restraints on firearms yet you do not provide any remedy or realistic alternative answers.
Mike McClellan posted at 12:51 pm on Sun, Apr 22, 2012.
Of course, Korwin doesn't mention this fact: Arizona has one of the highest gun deaths/capita rates in the nation. We always rank in the top five (here's a link to the latest rankings -- http://www.statemaster.com/graph/cri_mur_wit_fir-death-rate-per-100-000).
And we are probably the least restrictive gun environment in the nation.
So more guns = safer populace? Really? Doesn't seem to pan out that way in AZ.
Obviously restrictive gun laws don't equate to safer states -- D.C. has incredibly restrictive gun laws and its death by guns rate is usually at the top.
But the opposite is true, too -- more guns hasn't led to safer states, either.
Would guns in places this bill would allow make us safer? Have we had a spate of gun deaths in those places, or even gun violence, that would lead us to believe guns there would stop the violence? For example, have libraries been subject to shootings? Public swimming pools?
Slabside posted at 11:36 am on Sun, Apr 22, 2012.
Very true Alan.